On 9 June, I asked the following question in Parliament about the recently established Private Rented Sector Resilience Group. Today I received a reply. It took my breath away. 1/7

Membership is ScotGov, Scottish Association of Landlords, Citizens Advice Scotland, Shelter, Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers, COSLA, Propertymark, and Dundee & Glasgow City Councils. 2/7

In comparison to the Social Housing Resilience Group which has met 3 times per week since 24 March, the PRS Group first met on 2 April and meets fortnightly. Its existence has never been publicised by ScotGov. 3/7

But most extraordinarily, a Group established by Ministers to discuss the resilience of the private rented sector has no representation from the people who actually live in rented accommodation - the tenants. How on earth has this happened? 4/7

According to ScotGov, tenants’ interests are represented by Shelter Scotland and Citizens Advice Scotland. But neither of these organisations represents tenants. 5/7

Only tenants can represent tenants interests and if they are not on the group, any ambition to deliver resilience is a total sham. This is a shocking neglect of the interests of the 15% of Scotland’s population who live in the PRS. 6/7

You can read the letter here 7/7 https://drive.google.com/file/d/17AjJWNTD8eEJ9ZmeyfxownbBVlW3bamX/view